Use the subroutine below to trim whitespace (spaces and tabs)

trim_subs.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl
# Taken from http://www.somacon.com/p114.php 


# Declare the subroutines
sub trim($);
sub ltrim($);
sub rtrim($);

# Create a test string
my $string = "  \t  Hello world!   ";

# Here is how to output the trimmed text "Hello world!"
print trim($string)."\n";
print ltrim($string)."\n";
print rtrim($string)."\n";

# Perl trim function to remove whitespace from the start and end of the string
sub trim($)
{
	my $string = shift;
	$string =~ s/^\s+//;
	$string =~ s/\s+$//;
	return $string;
}
# Left trim function to remove leading whitespace
sub ltrim($)
{
	my $string = shift;
	$string =~ s/^\s+//;
	return $string;
}
# Right trim function to remove trailing whitespace
sub rtrim($)
{
	my $string = shift;
	$string =~ s/\s+$//;
	return $string;
}